Not that Students Of Decay is technically underrated, I mean they’ve got over 100 releases in 10 years and were just featured as Label Of The Month in Resident Advisor, but I still feel like Alex Cobb’s label generally hasn’t gotten enough love. But maybe that’s changing, some of the last few releases have been super successful, so perhaps SoD will be the next Important. Either way, this label is the fucking best. Here’s some of my favorite records they’ve put out, in roughly chronological order, starting way back in 2006.

I turned 30! I thought I’d celebrate by playing some of the songs that have most influenced my taste in music and the paths I took to discover new sounds. This is in roughly chronological order and I only went as far as 2006 because anything later than that seemed to be missing the idea of “influential.”

Rivulets, Nathan Amundson’s musical moniker, has been making some sweet sad Americana for years, steadily releasing one killer record after another. Last year, he put out I Remember Everything on JellyFant Schallplatten, which was easily one of my favorite and most listened to records in 2014. Absolutely incredible stuff. Still can’t get enough of it. I reached out to see if he was willing to participate in my Q&A series, and (thankfully!) he was. Who knew he almost died rolling a car down a mountain?

What is the best way to die?
Ready, I would think. Or completely blindsided, doing something you love.

How do you think you’ll die?
Where I live now in Denver, I bike most everywhere I go, as long as it’s above freezing. Denver drivers don’t care much for people on bicycles. Cyclists are murdered here by automobiles, rage-drivers, etc. with regularity. I think that’s a likely way for me to go.

What does kindness mean to you?
Getting out of your own head enough to be present for everyone around you. Just literally giving people the time of day. It’s a struggle.

Where do you find love?
My fans – people who love my music. How can you not love them too? I fall in love all the time. At the movies, reading books. Just walking around I see like a half dozen girls every day that I want to marry immediately.

When were you most afraid?
When I felt like the world wasn’t listening.

How do you listen to music?
You know, I’m still rocking an iPod classic. Is that what it’s called? 160GB black iPod. I buy CDs and rip them at full WAV resolution. I’ll put stuff on my phone too but I forget it’s there. A lot of my music is being released on vinyl these days but I still don’t own a record player :(

Super quick poll for you guys so I can get a better handle on where and how my most common readers use AGB, and how you’d like to use AGB. Your responses are anonymous and none of the questions are required. Thanks a million in advance!

Giveaway time! I’ve got one sweet sealed copy of the stellar Silent Period by Gareth Flowers & Josh Mason on vinyl that needs a new home. I reviewed it the other day, and if you don’t remember, it was a bit of a concept album, with an anonymous dude going through these four songs/stages: “The Awareness,” “The Confusion,” “The Fear,” and “The Resignation,” in that order.

The contest is easy. I want you to come up with another phrase that fits in with those four. It could come before The Awareness (ex: The Silence), between The Confusion and The Fear (ex: The Anger), whatever. Go crazy.

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Gareth Flowers is a new name to me, but that’s only because I haven’t been paying attention, he’s got a few releases under his belt, both solo and with Josh Frank as The Batteries Duo, so, short history lesson, Flowers is a classically trained trumpeter (trumpeteer?) gone rouge, and he’s teamed up with minimal master Josh Mason to unleash some hauntingly beautiful creep drone. Silent Period has a story to it, following a mystery dude after having gone through some mysterious circumstances and his overnight journey into self-exile, going from “The Awareness,” to “The Confusion,” to “The Fear,” to “The Resignation,” all four of which are the four songs on here, drifting in between states of fog & clarity, although there’s little in the way of dynamics, with the exception of some clicky rhythmic tapping and looped alarms on “The Confusion,” this is all slow-mo tonal & texture shifts, with Flowers’ trumpet taking lead most of the time, droning high & weird, the unsettled nerves that aim to drive you mad, and Mason’s subtle ambient that all but disappears into the early morning mist, acting as the tender voice of reason that balances the dramatic and emotional trumpet, I never would have paired these two guys, but the output here is just fucking astounding, a small slice of sound mixed together in unimaginable ways, the melancholic urgency into the hypnotic shimmer, the silk smooth high end alongside the finest, most delicate grit, I can’t recommend this one enough, and, disclaimer, I don’t even usually like the trumpet, so believe me when I say this one’s special, only 250 copies, available next week, definitely not to be slept on.